Consumers are increasingly using kiosks to conduct business with enterprises. The kiosks come in a variety of sizes and are used for a variety of purposes. Some kiosks are drive through, such as fast food establishments, pharmacies, banks, and the like. Other kiosks are stationary located in gas stations, airlines, grocery stores, department stores, and the like.
In addition, what is considered a kiosk is evolving with today's technology. For example, digital signs now provide advertisements and mechanisms for users to interact with the displays to perform transactions. Such mechanisms include blue tooth communication, Near Field Communication (NFC), Quick Response (QR) code scanning, WiFi communication, and the like.
Traditional self-checkout systems employ item level security through weight, dimensions, colors, etc. While not completely effective, the net effect is that shoppers are inclined to scan and then bag each item progressing through the cart until all items are entered into the transaction.
Recent advances in handheld technology, notably mobile devices, have introduced new challenges for retailers to implement adequate forms of security while the shopper controls scanning of items in the aisle and makes payment either at a self-service lane, assisted lane, or fully from the mobile device using eWallet technologies (e.g. PayPal®, etc.).
Transaction audits are thought to be effective in preventing theft with in-aisle scanning systems. The audit strategy is commonly based on a combination of shopping and audit history, together with various probability models. When an audit is indicated, it can be either partial or full. A partial audit verifies that certain items selected randomly from the cart are in fact entered into the transaction. Other strategies, such as ones based on selecting the items by value are also common.
A full audit has the attendant re-itemize the entire transaction, which is then compared to the in-aisle version of the transaction to identify attempted theft.
While effective, the audit is highly disruptive to the checkout activity often slowing throughput during peak store hours as Attendants have multiple audits queued up. This greatly frustrates shoppers as well, because they are delayed from finalizing the transaction for seemingly no reason at all (from the perspective of the shoppers).